Air Force Opened Criminal Probe After a Lockheed F-35 Grounding
- U.S. Attorney declined in 2019 to prosecute a case over tubing
- Lockheed voluntarily paid $19 million to replace faulty parts
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Air Force and Pentagon investigators opened a criminal probe of Lockheed Martin Corp. in 2016 over faulty coolant line tubing inside F-35 jets after 57 were either temporarily grounded or required production line fixes, according to officials confirming the previously undisclosed inquiry.
The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas reviewed a criminal “product substitution” case developed by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Pentagon Inspector General’s investigative arm but declined last December to prosecute, Linda Card, an Air Force spokeswoman, said in an email on Thursday.